Learn it in the Tree

A talk by Adi Da Samraj
April 28, 1996

ADI DA SAMRAJ: You have to learn it in the tree. The tree is your right asana, or disposition.

When I am in California, I like to visit the redwoods and the sequoias. The redwoods and the sequoias have the sign and disposition of standing there, just as that form, basically just as it looks, all the time. They are always standing right there and getting bigger, increasing the profundity of conductivity. A massive being like that—doing just that for over 2,000 years—is a huge energy system. It can be felt through subtler sensitivity.

Trees are not necessarily what you call a “Spiritual” system. Of course, there are trees, and then there are trees. There are Great Trees, and there are just big, good trees. In the trees, it is not all Kundalini energy or even beyond that. It is natural force—great natural force, great etheric force. You can resonate with trees readily, because they are very present at the etheric level. And there may be some trees who are great beings of some degree or other—but they are, like among the humans, more rare, like human Real-God-Realizers of any degree. Perhaps Great Trees are not as scarce as Great Realizers among the humans. But it is only the Great ones, the truly Great Trees, that could be characterized as “Spiritual”.

If you cut them all down, you see, you are cutting the link to your own root-disposition. That disposition is unconscious in human beings. You do not know, generally, that you are trees. Therefore, you don’t tend to do what trees do. You tend to do what monkeys do, or fruit-eating birds do. You think you are separate from the tree. The Witness bird is identifying with the core of the tree, and beyond it. The Witness bird is in the tree position—not in the limb or peripheral position, or even the bird position as independent of the tree altogether. It is at rest, feeling the depth of its Native Position. The Witness feels that depth energetically, as well as identifying it as Consciousness Itself.

In that disposition of the tree, there is a kind of “Perfect Practice”. It is not the Divinely Awakened Realization inherently, but it is not impossible that Great Trees could be Divinely Awakened by Me. Therefore, I like to visit them. I do not have to contact all trees physically, so I especially contact some trees. I occasionally establish another “pole” in the form of a tree. Sometimes I tell people about it and sometimes I do not. It is not necessary for people to know unless I want them to make some sort of use of it.

There are some specific trees at the Ruchira Sannyasin Hermitage Ashrams that I have Indicated to My devotees to serve—like Skyway, Grace Straightens, and Baptize Each One.

Also, it is strictly taboo to cut down trees on the Ruchira Sannyasin Hermitage Ashrams without My permission. At Adidam Samrajashram (Naitauba, Fiji), the native forests have never been touched by human beings. They must be preserved—not only by keeping the life going, but by keeping the old trees going, protecting them from things that may damage or kill them.

There is also an “experimental” banyan tree on Naitauba that spontaneously appeared, attached to the base of a palm tree trunk. It didn’t get quite rooted as it might, but it did get held in place, and it did get served. It has grown very, very slowly—I have been noticing it now for perhaps eight years or more. It has been quite a number of years now already. I’ve been having things done around it and on it, cutting away palm tree bulk and trimming the tree, keeping it properly in sun, and guiding its growth. It has been very stunted or slow-growing this whole time. It is on the sand there.

So that is also a kind of tree with which I have associated. It is not a Great Tree. It is a potential Great Tree, perhaps. But at this point, it is a kind of “pole” that I use relative to keeping things growing under such inauspicious conditions. I saw recently that it was taking hold better, it was beginning to look like it was overcoming the limitations.